The labor market is the big story in the march dashboard. The labor market in the St. Croix Valley exhibited some troubling signs in January (note that county level labor market data is always two months behind). While we saw a decrease in the unemployment rate from January 2010, total employment decreased. Thus, the decrease in the unemployment rate was caused by people leaving the labor market and not by people finding jobs. This is contrast to total employment at the state level, which increased from on year ago. During the last 12 months, though, the labor market has been slowly recovering, so the setback indicated by January's data may only be temporary.

St. Croix, Polk, and Pierce counties comprise Wisconsin’s St. Croix Valley. All three counties are located along the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. Two of the three counties, St. Croix and Pierce, are included in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN-WI metropolitan area, a 13-county region with of population of 3.25 million residents. For additional information on the March edition of the St. Croix Valley Economic Dashboard, contact Dr. Logan Kelly at cer@uwrf.edu or (715) 425-4993 or William Rubin at bill@stcroixedc.com or (715) 381-4383.